Between the Raindrops

Somethin' Bloomin'

Hope, for Arthur, usually laid low. Like a doe abed in the tall dewy grass, all quiet in the hush of morning. He would not see until he almost rode on top of her. When she busted forth from the underbrush and disappeared before he could find his aim.

A gentle rain visited Blackwater that morning, and they started in the stable proper. From the great opened doors, the soft murmur and clean scent of the rain drifted in on the breeze.

"I cannot tell you how much this has come to mean to me, Mr. Morgan," Emelia said, soft and sincere. She brushed Belladonna with smooth, confident strokes, proving to be tenderhearted and intuitive and so very eager to learn.

"How, exactly," he asked, bitten with a strange sort of curiosity that made everything about her fascinating and significant. He knew himself for a fool, without doubt. Tracking game he had no business pursuing a second time.

"Having these quiet little moments with these girls. And..." Emelia's dark eyes flicked up, their gazes meeting over the backs of their horses. The top half of her hair was drawn back, leaving soft strands to fall against her forehead and around her lovely face. She smiled and then returned her gaze to the brush and the pile of Bella's silvery coat. "I haven't been this content since...well. Before my father passed."

"You and your daddy close?" Arthur asked. Again, her smile flickered.

"Yes, very," Emelia replied. "He always believed in me, encouraged me. My brother thinks perhaps that he overindulged me, but..." she shrugged a slim shoulder. "I wonder, sometimes, what he'd have thought of all this."

"Why's that?"

"I like to think that he might have indulged my desire to remain unmarried," she said.

"Ah."

"But..." Emelia faltered. Something changed in her voice, a tone of disappointment or, perhaps resignation. "Then I remember that Sydney had been father's pick. In the end, he still wanted me to marry and to marry well."

"Daddies always do," Arthur drawled.

"I suppose," she said, unphased by his sarcastic tone. The rain had stopped, and Emelia untied Bella's lead and started for the doors. "I just want the choice to be mine. Maybe I am selfish... but I refuse to give up my practice to sooth his ego."

Arthur untethered Boadicea. With a whistle he followed Emma, thinking how different his life might have been if Mary had an ounce of her brand of selfishness.

The rain revitalized the foliage. Late spring buds popped, white and yellow and verdant green. They climbed the slope of the north road, toward the finer houses. All fresh painted with their fancy, carved trims and neat fences.

"What about you, Mr. Morgan?"

"Me?"

"Were you close to your father?" Emelia asked.

"Nope," Arthur said, and though a part of him wanting to chase her off the damning topic, more softly he added, "you don't wanna hear this, Emma."

"Of course, I do," Emelia declared. "You're my friend."

"So?"

"I want to know who you are."

It already came to this. He had been so young and stupid when last he wanted a woman for himself.

Mary, innocent and naïve, had invited him to a family dinner. To meet her daddy. The Gillis family lived in a fine part of town where the streets were cobbled, with sidewalks and fences around each tree. A neighborhood of large Victorian homes and sprawling yards more finely manicured then he ever hoped to be. Arthur, in love and trusting, walked into the ambush.